Ask a Manager

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Creating a development plan when I’m hoping to leave my job in a year

In my department we have semi-annual check-ins with the boss to discuss individual goals. The mid-year meeting is coming up, and the boss wants everyone to fill out an individual development plan to discuss during the meeting. It includes a list of leadership competencies, and you choose a few competencies and describe what steps you can take to improve in those areas. You also have to describe your “ambitions” for the next few years. I feel like the whole thing presupposes that the employee will be doing the same or similar work at this large company forever.

I am planning on going back to school and making a career switch to a completely different field in the next few years. (Let’s say that currently I work in marketing for medical supplies, but I want to design and build eco-friendly houses.) My partner and I will likely be moving in a year, and while I’m happy to be at this job for now, I’m excited to get out of here and start doing what I really want to do. I have not shared my plans with my boss and I’m not comfortable telling her the truth now when I’d like to stick around for another year. I just want to do my work well for as long as I’m here, but that’s not good enough for this conversation. What can I say when I have plans and ambitions that have nothing to do with my current job?

Assume that anything can change between now and the next year, and answer the questionnaire as if you’re staying with your company. Anything can change, after all, and even if you had an ironclad guarantee from the universe that you’re going to leaving this job in precisely a year, this would still be the practical way to handle it if you’re not ready to reveal your plans yet.

That said, I wouldn’t invite any major development steps that would require significant energy that you wouldn’t otherwise be spending … unless you’d be kicking yourself for not including them in a year if your plans do fall through or get delayed.

2. Should HR prep candidates before interviews?

I found my latest phone screen with the HR manager for a prospective company different than most I’ve encountered. When he asked me what I was looking for in terms of compensation, he immediately interjected before I could answer and told me the salary range “…in an effort not to pigeon-hole yourself with your answer, in case we were out-of-sync.” I told him I was fine with the range he quoted. Then at the end of the screening, he asked to set up an interview, gave me the name of the hiring manager who I will be interviewing with and advised me to check out her LinkedIn profile an suggested certain questions in addition to my own, all the while advising me to keep the interview more conversational with her.

Is it normal for the HR rep of a company to give this much help to a candidate? In the past, I’ve got nothing more than a series of questions from them before scheduling the face-to-face interviews.

It’s not unheard of. Most of this — not all — is the sign of a thoughtful HR person: Making sure that you don’t feel lowballed on salary is in the company’s best interests (if they want to retain good employees in the long-term) and suggesting you keep the interview more conversational is pretty basic guidance.

But I do take issue with him suggesting questions to ask the hiring manager, who will be assuming that those questions reflect your own thought process — I’d be pretty irked about that part if I were the hiring manager. (Unless the questions he was suggesting were designed to get you more insight into things he felt it was important for you to hear more about.)

3. After mistakes, should I tell my manager I’m having some personal issues?

I am usually a top performer at my job and pride myself on submitting great work. However, recently I have been a bit distracted by personal issues outside of work (my parents are getting divorced — it’s very messy and I am in the middle of it, as well as problems with my long-term boyfriend who I live with). As a result, in the past two weeks I have made two very small (read: easily fixable) mistakes.

I feel really silly – they were mistakes that never should have happened. I have a great relationship with my boss and he has assured me that both instances were small mistakes and told me not to worry about them, but I can’t help feeling like he may be questioning my work. I have apologized and made it clear I understand the mistakes and neither will happen again.

I know I shouldn’t dwell on the past, but I’m wondering if I should tell him I’ve been dealing with outside issues, or is that TMI? I guess I just feel horribly because both mistakes happened within a week of each other and I want to be sure he knows I’m not just being careless.

If they were truly very small mistakes, then there’s no need for that — not unless you’ve gotten the sense that your manager is concerned. But if it will bring you peace of mind and if your manager isn’t the type to punish people for occasionally having stresses outside of work, there’s nothing wrong with tipping him off that you’re going through a difficult period and that you’re trying to make sure that it doesn’t impact your work.

4. When a manager tells you that you’re lucky to have a job at all

What is meant by “you’re lucky you have a job” as stated by supervisors and managers in response to employees who complain about unfair treatment by management/supervisory staff?

It means “you should be grateful that you’re employed during this bad job market and not complain about the circumstances of your employment.” It’s usually said by bad managers who don’t know how to deal constructively with staff feedback.

5. Bringing a heating pad and seat cushion to a new job

I’m about to start a new job that I am very excited about. However, I am really concerned because I have some pretty intense back pain. My colleagues at my current company have always been open about their health issues (we had a company Advil bottle) so I have always felt comfortable bringing in my heating pad and seat cushion. The company that I’m about to start at is a bit larger and I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to bring out my heating pad. What should I do?

Don’t feel weird about bringing it in. There’s nothing inappropriate about it, and it’s a medical accommodation.

That said, if you can get by without it your first few days, I might do that, simply because every data point someone gets about you when you’re new looms far larger than it does once they know you. Not that there’s anything wrong with being known as the heating pad person from the start, but you might prefer to avoid it until you’ve first established yourself as something else.

6. What message to leave when someone doesn’t answer our scheduled call

I’m job searching and find myself often doing informational interviews or other interviews by phone when I’m responsible for being the caller. Sometimes, even when I confirm, the person forgets or doesn’t answer. When I call, I want to leave a message to show that I haven’t forgotten to call them. But I always struggle with what to say in the message — “Hi, remember me? We had plans?”

“Hi, it’s Jane Smith, calling for our 3:00 interview (or “appointment,” if it’s not an interview). If you get this in the next hour, you can reach me at ____; otherwise, I’ll email you about rescheduling for a better time.”

7. Listing four jobs in the same timeframe on your resume

In the year after I got my bachelors, while searching for a job that fit with my career goals I worked 4 part-time jobs concurrently (every day of the week; my sole time off was on Monday evenings and Sunday mornings). The job market wasn’t in my favor, and I had massive student loan bills, so I sucked it up and worked my butt off. For some context, three of these were hostess jobs at restaurants, one was office-based, as a loan processor at the mortgage branch of a bank.

I’ve started a 3-year grad program to get the degree that I’ve come to realize is necessary in my field (MDiv). When preparing my resume for my field education internships, would it be a red flag in any way for hiring managers to see 4 jobs listed in the same timeframe? If asked, I can explain very well how the skills I developed in these jobs translate to the positions I’m looking for, plus I have a few significant accomplishments at the mortgage office job that I can include, but I worry that just seeing 4 concurrent jobs might weed me out as a candidate.

Four jobs in the same timeframe isn’t inherently a red flag, but it’s an awful lot of information to take in — so since three of them were hostessing jobs, I’d combine those under one listing, like this:

Restaurant hostess, 2012 – 2013
Los Pollos Hermanos , April 2012 – May 2013
Bluth’s Banana Stand, February 2012 – May 2013
Merlotte’s, March 2012 – January 2013

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. My boss fired me but will probably change his mind

How do you handle a situation where a boss tells an employee early in the month that he will be fired at the end of the month? This is happening to me and I am prepared to leave, but I have a feeling he may “allow me to stay” at last minute. I was given such warning about being laid off at the end of the month twice, but only verbally and in private. Can I apply for and collect unemployment if I don’t show up next month? How should I handle this?

I’m not sure from your letter whether this is a firing for cause or a layoff for business reasons, or why you think your manager will change his mind in a few weeks, but I’d think that you’d need to decide whether staying is something you’re interested in doing. You’re certainly under no obligation to stay if you don’t want to; it would be perfectly reasonable to say, “Thank you, but when you told me you were letting me go, I moved forward with other plans.”

As for whether that would make you ineligible for unemployment, you’d have to check with your local unemployment agency, but my assumption is that it would (since you’d be turning down work).

2. My manager told my coworkers I was hospitalized for “a mental breakdown”

I work for a small business, where immediate supervisors take on the role of HR. Recently I was voluntarily hospitalized for mental illness under the recommendation of my therapist. I was as vague as possible about my hospitalization when I alerted my supervisor that I would be taking some leave time, and I only used leave time that I had earned. Besides 2 personal leave days I took off for the hospital, I have been working full time and completing my deadlines and projects.

Nonetheless, my supervisor guessed the reason for my absence and told the office gossip that I had been hospitalized for a mental breakdown, and now the office is full of chatter about how I can’t handle the stress of the job. Several people have come up to me during work time to recommended “cures” consisting of dietary changes and homeopathic herb pills. Other coworkers are calling me unstable and gossiping about me to clients.

I am disappointed that the job and work environment I liked have turned so suddenly on a dime to a place that I dread going to every day. My wife says that my supervisor’s disclosure of my hospitalization is a breach of confidentiality and that I should look for legal recourse. I am looking for another job. Do I have any legal standing regarding confidentiality? And for the future, what should I have done differently? (I have bipolar disorder and will struggle to mange it for my entire life.)

Your employer isn’t bound by the same medical confidentiality laws that, say, your doctor would be; it’s not illegal for them to share information about your health. It is, however, incredibly thoughtless, particularly given what it led to. And it’s possible that if you’re now being harassed based on your medical condition, there could be some legal issue there, but you’d need to talk to a lawyer to find out for sure. Regardless, though, I’d go back to your manager and explain that you’re taken aback that she shared such personal information with others and explain what it led to. I’d even ask her what she intends to do about the gossip about you that’s now occurring with clients, etc.

As for handling it in the future, I’m not sure what you can do differently, since I don’t know how your manager “guessed” the reason for your absence … but working for a more mature manager would be one big preventative measure. Sorry you’re dealing with this.

3. Why was our direct deposit temporarily disabled?

Is direct deposit being “temporarily disabled in our payroll software” actually code for “we don’t have money in the bank to cover your paychecks”?

Maybe. But it could also just mean that there’s some technical issue they’re working out. Have you seen other signs of financial instability?

4. Can I ask to be paid as a consultant for training my replacement after I leave my job?

I recently gave my resignation at my current job as I am now starting a new one in a few weeks. I gave my notice to my boss – giving her 9 days instead of the usual 10 days because of a pre-planned vacation. She failed to come into the office to have a conversation with me after I submitted my resignation (via email cause she is never in the office) and now wants me to come back and train my successor (they are going to promote my assistant to take over my responsibilities) in a few weeks because she is going on vacation again and won’t be back in the office until the end of August.

Can I ask them to pay me for this time as a consultant? I am giving them notice and will do my best to get all my files organized and write up a document with transition information, but I feel as though it is not my fault the timing on this is bad and because she is going on vacation, I have to come in after I have already started my new position to help train my assistant.

Not only can you ask to be paid for that time, but you absolutely should. And it shouldn’t be a request — it should be a factual statement, as in, “I can do that, but since I’ll no longer be on your payroll, I’d need to be paid as a consultant. I think a fair rate would be $X.” (And that rate should be more than what you previously earned working for them, since if they’re not paying you through their payroll, payroll taxes won’t be coming out of it. Plus, you’re doing this as a favor to them and on top of a different job.)

You also should feel free to set whatever limits you want on this — as far as which hours you’re available and for how long. And you should feel free to decline it entirely if you’d rather focus on your new job (and if you decide to do that, you can explain it by saying that you’ll be too busy with your new position). Keep in mind that the only thing you’re strictly OBLIGATED to do here is to leave everything in good shape and work hard through your last day. Anything after that is optional.

5. Could having a letter published here jeopardize your job?

Do you know of any cases of a reader’s job being compromised by writing in to you? Do you forsee any situation where anonymously asking a question about a fairly specific work scenario might get someone in a lot of trouble? I was browsing your archives and read a post in which the OP’s coworker quickly chimed in in the comments section, which surprised me. I would never let another coworker know that I had written at length about potentially sensitive workplace issue online, even if I trusted them and I knew they shared my opinions. Maybe I’m paranoid? To be clear, I think your blog is awesome and should exist, but I wonder people have accidentally gotten themselves in trouble being not discreet enough.

If anything, I think it’s the opposite — I often get people writing in with questions who are concerned they’ll be recognized, when in fact the question is pretty common or generic. That said, it’s not impossible that someone could be recognized if their letter was about a very unusual situation with lots of specific, identifying details included. But thinking to the typical letter that’s published here, it’s fairly unlikely. (In the post you mentioned, my impression was that the letter-writer had told the coworker about the letter herself, not that the coworker had just stumbled upon it.)

An exception to this would be something like the letter from the person whose ex-coworker was throwing a mean-spirited party for some, but not all, employees of the company. That was uniquely weird enough that I’d think someone else who worked there would recognize the situation if they came across the post (although I’m not sure they’d know who specifically had written the letter).

But if all the stars aligned and someone was outed for writing a letter, whether or not they got in any trouble would depend on what the letter said. A request for advice on getting your coworkers to stop interrupting you? Unlikely to get you in trouble. A complaint about your horrid boss who you’re plotting to get fired would be a different risk level. But again, unless you include tons of really specific identifying details, your boss is unlikely to spot you.

6. Is my sci-fi book review blog too fringe for my resume?

I have been writing for a blog for around two years, doing daily updates on Twitter, interacting with commenters, setting up giveaways, etc. This has given me a lot of experience with WordPress and social media in general, along with enhancing my writing skills. The blog is a collaborative effort among a few other people. This blog is pretty large and I’ve had some of my own reviews mentioned in a few books on the review blurb pages that are at the beginning of books.

When I sat down with a resume consultant to fix up my resume, I asked about mentioning writing for a blog somewhere on the resume. When asked about the type of blog I write for, I mentioned that its is a book review blog mainly reviewing urban fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal books.

She told me that I should probably not mention what type of blog it is as it is “too out there” or too much on the “fringe.” I am looking into public relations and nonprofit work, and I think my experience with social media and blog writing would be a good asset to mention for a position that requires blogging and social media experience. Is my blog experience to bizarre for conservative business minded professionals to handle?

No, you should mention it. It’s good experience, and really, someone who would take issue with you reviewing sci-fi and fantasy books is the one who’s “on the fringe” not you.

7. Expressing continued interest in an internal position

I interviewed for an internal position back in February and ended up being the second choice candidate and did not get hired for the position. I heard through the grapevine that the same job in the same office has opened up and I am still interested in working there, however I do not have any idea how to approach expressing my continued interest in the job considering that the interview was so long ago. Do you have any advice on how to approach this?

Just be straightforward: “I heard this position may be opening up again, and I’d love to be considered for it again if you think I’d be a strong candidate.”

It’s seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go…

1. Asking to have my salary information removed from our database system

I recently started working for a nonprofit that utilizes an extensive, online tracking and storage system (Salesforce). While I was exploring our database as part of my training, I discovered that all of my email exchanges with the organization from when I was a candidate are not only saved but published. This includes the email exchanges about my salary and benefits with an email attachment including my final offer letter. This information is currently accessible to everyone in the organization. In addition to not being comfortable having this information readily accessible (not every employee’s contract information is published, only the most recent hires), the fact that some of the new hires, including me, have a higher starting salary then some of the more veteran employees has been a source of unnecessary drama.

Would it be completely inappropriate for me to ask to have this information removed? Who would be most appropriate person to ask — the Salesforce admin, my manager, HR?

No, it’s perfectly appropriate, and I’d approach it from the assumption that it’s a mistake, since not everyone’s is in there and that whoever should be in charge of this doesn’t even realize that it’s there. I’d ask either your manager or HR, but not the Salesforce admin, who probably needs to be directed by someone with more authority to remove it.

2. My coworkers hear my joints cracking all the time due to a medical condition

I can’t believe I’m asking this, but here it is. I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a disorder that has a lot of serious and less serious effects. The least serious effect is that my joints make loud cracking noises while I work in a small, quiet office. I know that I have disturbed people, and there is very little that I can do to stop it. Any ideas for dealing with an uncontrollable but gross and disruptive thing like this?

Have you told people what’s going on? You’re under no obligation to, but if you’re comfortable doing so, that’s probably the best way to handle it. If people think you’re a chronic joint cracker, they might be annoyed, but if they know that it’s the effect of a condition you’re struggling with, most people will be sympathetic.

3. How can I convince my friend to get a job?

A friend of mine has not worked for 2+ years after finishing grad school. Her parents support her by letting her to live by herself in their extra property in the same city. She’s willing to work, but idealizes how hiring should be done. Her parents, who run a successful business, told her that she should accept only the jobs that she wants to do. She has told her friends that “the employers should see through her potential,” “people get jobs because of their ‘charm’ but not by merit,” and “employers should approach the candidates instead,” etc. She has tried to get a job, but told me that “one government job opening attracted thousands of applicants.” She has had odd jobs occasionally.

How can I tell this friend to get a job to at least to pay her bills? She’s constantly broke. Some businesses nearby have “help wanted” signs, but she’s unwilling to settle for a less ideal job. My friends and I have forwarded job postings to her, but those conversations have gone nowhere. I’m not connected anywhere insofar to get her a job.

You can’t, and it’s not your job to. It was her parents’ job, which they apparently failed spectacularly at, and now it’s her job. It’s not yours.

When she says ridiculous things about how job-searching works, you can certainly correct her, and if you’re close to her you can have one serious heart-to-heart about your worries … but beyond that, she’s going to have to learn this one on her own.

4. How to solve a conflict between two strong-willed employees

What do you do when you have two very strong-headed and opinionated employees working closely together, one a team leader and the other a newer employee, who have a personality conflict? The team leader has been with the company for five years and feels as if the newer employee talks to her in a condescending manner. The new employee has knowledge in the industry and has done the job for many years but is learning a new way and tends to ask lots of questions and wants specific details as to why our company does it such and such a way. This employee now feels that she asks too many questions so she stopped asking and then feels like she is looked at as a show off. I don’t think either of them is right; it’s just a power struggle.

Is the issue that the newer employee is doing too much of “we did it a better way at my old job?” If so, that’s genuinely annoying after a point, and it would be worth your talking to her and telling her that you encourage to ask as many questions as she needs to learn the job, but that at the same time she should be sensitive to making your existing staff feel that she’s criticizing the way they do things or questioning their own knowledge. Tell her also that you’d welcome her ideas about how your team could do things differently, but that she should bring them to you, not the team leader. (If it becomes necessary, you can also ask her to spend the next few months learning your set-up before you two talk about possible changes.)

Meanwhile, tell the team leader that you expect her to find a way to get along pleasantly and professionally with the new employee, period. If she has concerns, she can bring them to you — but she needs to make sure that her manner doesn’t discourage the new employee from asking the questions she needs in order to learn her job.

5. Should I take time off work when my boss is very sick?

I’ve been making a plan with my doctor to have a medically necessary but non-emergency surgery. For a number of reasons, but primarily financial, it is better for me to do the surgery this calendar year. My plan has been to schedule it for mid-late November/early December when we are not as busy but before everyone takes time off for Christmas. I’m expecting to be out about 2 weeks, the second week of which it’s reasonable to assume I could log on from home a little and keep up with emails, but not be at full capacity. We have a good telecommuting policy in place, though it’s not often used.

My boss was recently diagnosed with cancer. I found out today that the cancer has spread (it’s in her blood and bones now), there is very little the doctors can do for her, and she has a life expectancy of around 2-3 years. She’s understandably very upset, as are all the folks in our office. She is missing a lot of work, and I have taken on a lot of responsiblity. This is fine (as previously my primary complaint has been lack of work/responsibility). However, this leads me to wonder if I should put off the surgery, or go ahead. If I do go ahead, when and how do I tell the remaining manager that I’ll need to take 2 weeks off when he’s already down a significant support person? We are 3 people of a 6 person team, but there is some separation of duties, meaning that the remaining 3 people are not really prepared to step up in the way that I am. Am I overthinking this? Part of me thinks I should just cancel the surgery, put my head down, and wait this out. Given the new information, waiting it out may not be an option, as the longer I wait the sicker she is likely to get.

Go forward with your plans for the surgery. As you point out, it’s not likely that it’s going to be any easier to take time off later; in fact, this may be the easiest time for you to take off for a while, if your boss is going to be increasingly out. But even if that weren’t the case, I think it would make sense for move forward. You can never predict if it will really be a better time later (someone else could get sick or leave or who knows what else). Yes, it might a tricky two weeks for your office, but they’ll get through it — this stuff happens, people accommodate it, and it’s rarely as bad as the person who needs to be out fears it will. Work will go on, and two weeks is very little time in the scheme of things. So go ahead and tell your managers. When you do, just be straightforward, note the timing isn’t ideal, and offer to do whatever you can beforehand to make it as easy as possible on the offer.

I’m sorry about your boss.

6. Should I send a post-interview thank-you note even though I didn’t get the job?

I recently had a successful group interview with a company recruiter, followed by a not-as-successful face-to-face interview with two store managers at the location to which I applied. I didn’t send thank-you notes to any of my interviewers for a few reasons — the foremost of which being that a decision was very, very likely going to be reached before any thank-you notes would be received through the mail. Probably not the best strategy, but it made some sense to me.

Anyway, I got a phone call from the recruiter who explained to me that another candidate had been selected for the position, but that since my interview went so well, she would like to keep me on file for similar openings. Obviously, a thank you note for the recruiter is in order for keeping me in future consideration. Should I send something to the two managers as well, or is it weird at this point since the position has already been filled?

Send them a note! Tell them that even though you didn’t get the position, you appreciated meeting with them, that talking with them made you even more interested in working with them and for their company, and would love to stay in touch, and wish them the best of luck in their work and with the new hire. It will make you look gracious, and you never know what seeds it might plant for the future. (Also, it’s totally fine to send this and any other thank-you notes in the future by email; you don’t need to use postal mail.)

7. Can I ask an interviewer about a preferred skill that I don’t have?

On Friday, I applied for a position at my alma mater, from which I graduated last spring. I have three years of experience doing the kind of work involved from an on-campus job I had while I was in school, but I don’t have a few of the “preferred but not required” skills, which include speaking a second language (no language in particular was specified). Since I’m pretty familiar with the work, I’m surprised that I can’t think of how being bilingual would be particularly useful in this position.

I have no reason to expect to get selected to be interviewed, but if I do, would it be odd if I asked about this? I’m really curious about how it fits into performing the duties of the role, but I wonder if bringing it up if they don’t bring it up first will only serve to emphasize that I lack a skill that would like in a candidate for this position.

Sure, you can bring that up. It’s fine to say something like, “I noticed in the job posting that you mentioned it would be a bonus if candidates spoke a second language. I don’t, unfortunately, but I was curious about how that might end up being used in the role.”

You don’t really need to worry that you’re going to draw their attention to the fact that you don’t have this skill. If it’s an important one, they’ve already noted it (and are interviewing you anyway) or would have asked about it.